There are numerous app stores on Android, but Google Play is by far the largest. App Annie counted only free apps for its downloads figure. Paid apps are included in the revenue analysis, however.

A combined 53 percent of iOS app downloads come from the U.S., China, Japan, and the U.K., with the balance coming from the rest of the world. Google Play’s top four download markets are the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and India. They combine for 43 percent of Google Play downloads.

China was the second-largest iOS market for downloads, even though Apple’s operating system only controls a fraction of Chinese market device share.

Interestingly, despite the fact that Google’s Android platform owns the massive Chinese smartphone market, Google offers very limited support for Google Play in China. Android apps are typically downloaded through third-party app stores.

While downlo! ads are important, developers ultimately want to get paid too.

App Annie defines app revenues as revenues flowing to developers “through the store, including revenues both from the price to download an app, as well as any in-app purchases (including subscriptions).”

We know that iOS app revenues historically dwarf Android revenues. App Annie found that iOS generates four times the revenues of Google Play, even as Google Play revenues have grown 311 percent this year.

Although iOS revenues are more concentrated in the U.S. than Google Play’s, it turns out iOS revenues are more evenly distributed across markets.

iOS receives 40 percent of its revenues from countries outside its largest four markets. Google Play saw only 23 percent of its revenues flow from outside the top four.

Google Play leans heavily on high monetization in Japan and South Korea, but has not effectively monetized its massive global user base.

You can have your black card and your credit card carved out of adamantium (just kidding, I would really like that), the only credit card I want is MasterCard’s Display Card. MasterCard has been testing the card that comes with a LCD and touchscreen keypad, for some time and has now introduced it in Singapore. They say the added tech is for security: users can generate a one-time password as an authentication security measure.

Here’s MasterCard:

At present, banking institutions that necessitate a higher level of security for their online banking services require the use of a separate authentication token or device. The innovative 2-in-1 device, which combines the functionality of a standard payment card with a state-of-the-art security token, currently reflects the customer’s OTP. In future, this card could incorporate additional functionalities and be able to indicate other real time information such as available credit balance, loyalty or reward points, recent transactions, and other interactive information.

I’m in the camp of throwing a LCD screen and touchscreen keypad on as much things as you can. I don’t even really care about the security function, I just like staring at screens. [Mastercard via CNET]

Android’s fragmentation problem isn’t just a software issue; it has a hardware problem, too. Android has hardware fragmentation because it supports a slew of handsets from a number of manufacturers. As of September, the most popular screen size and density for Android phones accounted for about half of the market, with the balance taken by nine other screen sizes and densities.

This too can make developing on Android a headache because developers must prepare their app for a range of screen sizes. Compare this to the iPhone, which until last week always had the same screen size.

What if a virus were a shapeshifter, able to change its appearance each time it infects a machine? What if a virus used your own files against you, able to ransack the programs on your computer for the bits of code it needs? Judging from the progress made on the Frankenstein virus, a venture sponsored by the U.S. Air Force, that may soon be a reality.

Developed by two professors at the University of Texas at Dallas, New Scientist says the Frankenstein virus is essentially a program compliler with directions about the algorithms it needs to assemble. Once unpacked and functional, it begins searching the software on your computer for the code it needs—generally taking little snippets called gadgets. These gadgets are written to perform specific actions and thus can be transposed over to another program more easily. The researchers only had the Frankenstein virus create two simple algorithms as a proof of concept, but they believe it can assemble any program, including full-scale malware.

And though there have been other viruses that can change their code, Frankenstein is believed to be more dangerous because it can also change its every aspect of itself to hide on your computer.

Frankenstein is different because all of its code, including the blueprints and gadget-finder, can adapt to look like parts of regular software, making it harder to detect. Just three pieces of such software are enough to provide over 100,000 gadgets, so there are a huge number of ways for Frankenstein to build its monster, but it needs blueprints that find the right balance. If the blueprint is too specific, it leaves Frankenstein little choice in which gadgets to use, leading to less variation and making it easier to detect. Looser blueprints, which only specify the end effects of the malware, are too vague for Frankenstein to follow, for now.

Business Insider Intelligencea new research and analysis service focused on mobile computing and the Internet. The product is currently in beta. For more information, and to sign up for a free 30-day trial, click here.

It’s even more dominant overseas. Search accounts for 48 percent of mobile ad spend in North America, but is 72 percent and 65 percent in Asia and Europe, respectively.

Conventional wisdom holds that mobile ad spend will surge to catch up with user engagement. However, as Henry Blodgetwrote in January, “Most individuals do not spend more money buying things merely because they can now use the web on their mobile devices.” In other words, advertisers will only spend more money if they believe they can increase their return on investment. Mobile spending may indeed catch up with engagement, but it will come partially at the expense of other kinds of advertising.

Want more data about mobile ads? Watch for a special report from BI Intelligence on the State of Mobile Advertising later this week….

It’s always helpful when tech start-ups scheme new ways for you to burn through that bank account. Like YBUY, the membership-only site that charges a monthly fee in exchange for trying out the latest and greatest in gadgetry, like an iPad 2 or Xbox 360, sans shipping fees. The fresh-out-of-beta portal offers approved users the ability to return or purchase the pre-selected goods after a 30 day trial period, with that recurring charge going towards the full retail price if you choose to opt-in. Its co-founders claim to curate the ever-changing roster of high-end kit, taking into account the best product reviews (ahem) and even featuring certified refurbs. So, what’s the catch? Well, there doesn’t really appear to be any. It’s simply up to you to curb that tech enthusiasm and keep your credit card balance resting peacefully at zero.

Blockbuster? We knew it was dying, courtesy Redbox, Netflix and the changing ways people consume their entertainment, but when will it finally expire? Probably next year, according to one analyst and the company’s own balance sheet. Updated.

While the remaining 6,000 stores is nothing to sneeze at (my late hometown one not amongst them), there is precedence for massive, simultaneous closures in rival Movie Gallery. That company had 2,400 stores, you see, and it shuttered them all back in February.

Ending on a positive note, the company could have a Redbox/Netflix hybrid future with its existing supermarket kiosks and mail service. So here’s hoping that happens, some people can keep their jobs, and Blockbuster’s predicted “demise” in 2011 is merely a metamorphosis into something a bit leaner and meaner. Competition is good, and all that.

Update: Reader Josh writes in with an additional bit of depressing news for Blockbuster:

[W]hen considering the future of Blockbuster kiosks, Blockbuster doesn’t actually own any of kiosks. NCR owns and operates all of them. Blockbuster just gets a small licensing royalty for them. So, Blockbuster definitely doesn’t have a chance at sustaining itself on those kiosks.

As part of a special report on the state of couch potatoes in the year 2010, the Economist collected data on perceived vs. actual media consumption. People are in denial about their TV addictions and overconfident in their YouTube cool.

Maybe not consciously, but that seems to be the case. The chart shows that to some extent YouTube is still a media event—something we’re aware of ourselves watching—whereas TV just washes over us and seeps into our rotting brains without us even realizing it.

These numbers are from 2008, though, and it would be interesting to see how the balance has shifted over the last 2 years. Personally, my YouTube watching is way up, my TV watching is way down, and the only time I hear the radio is when someone drives by with their windows down. Because honestly, who needs Treme when you have this. [The Economist]

The habits of modern consumers and their expectations have so drastically changed the landscape into which marketing and advertising campaigns are launched that what held true in the “golden age of advertising” no longer holds true at this, the dawn of the “golden age of the individual.”

In the classic “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing,” Al Ries and Jack Trout expound on laws that are rooted in the ability to use storytelling to weave spellbinding brands and evoke emotion-filled loyalty. However, as the balance of power shifted away from advertisers to the people they used to target, the game has changed.

Increasingly, individuals prefer to do their own research rather than just take advertisers’ word for it. Individuals need greater levels of detailed information than can be conveyed in a :30 spot, a one page ad, or a radio spot. More individuals are empowered with information that is likely to have been created by other individuals (e.g., product reviews, blog posts) instead of advertisers.

Another day, another story about some cheap, plastic Wii motion control accessory finding an application outside of gaming. In this case, it’s the balance board, and not only is this device helping stroke victims recover, it’s saving them money, too.

In fact, doctors at the University of Melbourne found that the balance board, normally used for pseudo Yoga or navigating Mii’s down a virtual ski slope, was so sensitive it could very well replace traditional laboratory-grade “force platforms” doctors use to assess a patient’s balance.

When doctors disassembled the board, they found the accelerometers and strain gauges to be of “excellent” quality. “I was shocked given the price: it was an extremely impressive strain gauge set-up,” said lead researcher Ross Clark, in an interview with New Scientist.

Even better, Clark’s team has already published a paper that verifies the Wii balance board is “clinically comparable” to the nearly $18,000 lab force platform. That’s great news for many smaller physio clinics that would otherwise be unable to afford the traditional rig. [New Scientist]

Digital Consigliere

Dr. Augustine Fou is Digital Consigliere to marketing executives, advising them on digital strategy and Unified Marketing(tm). Dr Fou has over 17 years of in-the-trenches, hands-on experience, which enables him to provide objective, in-depth assessments of their current marketing programs and recommendations for improving business impact and ROI using digital insights.